BBC to Change VOD Rules for Third Parties

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In February, the BBC's regulatory board, the BBC Trust, published provisional conclusions on how the corporation's syndication policy ought to be updated. At the time, “bespoke” versions of iPlayer tying into other services were out of the question. BBC content was restricted to the three versions of iPlayer available to be run on video-on-demand (VOD) services. Pay-TV company Virgin Media launched iPlayer onto its cable service in 2008, but BSkyB refused, wanting the BBC to change its policy so it can take individual shows and let their customers access the programming through Sky Anytime+.

Now it seems that the Beeb is taking Sky's point into consideration. The Trust published more flexible guidelines on how the corporation will be offering its content to rivals. Revising the syndication policy, the Trust stated that it would be in the best interest of license fee payers to have access to BBC programming on multiple platforms, within iPlayer, but that it will also be open to negotiations on the rule.

In a statement released: “The Trust accepts that circumstances may occasionally arise that justify special arrangements that depart from this model. The revised policy proposes a more flexible approach. The BBC must comply with the principles that the Trust has set but the Trust is not prescribing how this should be achieved in any specific instance.”

“License fee payers should be able to find BBC on-demand content available on lots of different platforms, but this has to be done in a way that gives value for money and satisfies some basic principles to ensure that BBC content serves the public as it is meant to,” said vice-chair of the BBC Trust, Diana Coyle. “We've taken on board what the industry told us earlier this year. I hope that we have reached a sensible way forward in this complicated area, and we will take account of any final views before publishing the new policy early in 2012.”

At present, the BBC has not given examples of how the revised policy will work, but it does seem like Sky Anytime+ will be able to access the content it wants. A final report will be published early in 2012. In the meantime, Sky subscribers will have to wait just a bit longer to watch BBC shows on their Sky VOD service.
 
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